Against Racial Hatred / No Nazis in the Lecture Halls (January 1960)
After the dedication of the rebuilt Cologne Synagogue in September 1959, there was a spike in incidences of neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic graffiti throughout the Federal Republic, with 470 cases being registered from September 1959 through the end of January 1960 alone. At the beginning of January 1960, students and young labor unionists organized a counterdemonstration in front of the memorial for the victims of National Socialism on Steinplatz in West Berlin’s Charlottenburg district. West Berlin students were known for being particularly politically active, and they also used this opportunity to protest the fact that many people in positions of influence in the Federal Republic had also occupied these posts during the “Third Reich.” The protestors’ banners read: “Against Racial Hatred” and “No Nazis in the Lecture Halls.”